Samibotss

I didn't know I could do multiple alignements, I always thought doing an alignement would wipe the previous one's data. I'll try doing 2-star + 1-star and see if it improves result. As for platesolving, I just never took the time to learn it and understand it, will surely check it out now that you mention it Yeah I thought of it as well, so I parked and restarted the mount, but alignement was still off...

Howdy, I've been imaging the Eagle Nebula (M16) over the past few weeks, and I've encountered a problem concerning alignement accuracy as of recent. Simply put, on some nights I'll be able to get a decent alignement and have the mount find the object on the first try, and on others like tonight, using the same stars, the mount just doesn't seem to hone-in on the object. It's strange, as I'll often test the accuracy after having done my 2-star alignement, and it finds objects like planets and bright stars relatively accurately (if only off-center), but fail to hone-in on M16. Unfortunately, I have a limited view of the night sky, and can only use stars in the south west - south east region, so I have a limited range of stars to be used for alignement, but even trying other stars doesn't seem to solve the problem. Should I go for 3-star alignements? Is there something I can do to fix this? What's even more problematic is it seems sporadic, as if the mount wants to cooperate on some nights and doesn't on others. Any help is appreciated

Indeed I have not, but I will now

Thank you all for the useful feedback I've finally gotten clear skies & time to test it out, and indeed, I had to remove the locking ring. Ended up with sharp, pinpoint stars! Guiding results are still abysmal, but I'm guessing it's because I'm missing a calibration to tell PHD2 where the scope is pointing, and I'm guiding on camera. I'm gonna try EQMod Ascom guiding, to let PHD2 control the mount directly. I'm wondering if this will eliminate the need for a calibration, or the need for a recurring calibration?

I'll definitely try this as well!

I see. I'll try that and see what I get.

So, I've went out again last night, and despite having ajusted the focuser all the way, the stars still look blown out. I've tried doing the calibration by pressing the green button, but it doesn't seem to calibrate much. Again, guiding on such blown out stars doesn't seem to be working out too well for me, I'm getting worse results than with no guiding Archive.zip I've attached my PHD2 logs above.

Well, I've completely pushed the focuser, and I think I've managed to fix the focusing issue. However, despite PHD2 finding a star, it doesn't seem to be guiding much. the crosshair is still brown, and since I'm guiding only with the camera, I can't do much in the of calibration. I can hear the mount seemingly trying to reajust when I turn on guiding, but I cant seem to push my exposure times beyond what I normally can achieve.

ok I see, thanks for the insight I'll try and reajust it

I have tried to adjust the front element, but there is little travel between the minimum and maximum positions. I'll retry tonight to see if I can get it to focus that way. I have screwed an included extender already, although it is quite small ( you can see the separation between the camera's black ring and the extender on the photos)

Hello There! I'm reaching out to you all regarding a recent acquisition of an Auto-guiding bundle, which includes a Sky-Watcher 9x50 Finder scope & ZWO Asi 120MM with C adapter. The problem is, I can't seem to achieve focus on the (I think?) standard configuration. I'm looking to try my hand at guiding purely with the camera at first (no EQMod/ EQDirect), but since the stars look blown out, so PHD2 can't lock down and track anything. I've included images of both what I see in PHD2, and how my camera is attached to the finderscope. I'm just wondering, if I need to buy an extension or if I'm missing something in the way it's setup. Any input is appreciated - Sami N. .

I went out tonight to try out the DARV method, and this is the result I got : Azimuth adjustements : Altitude adjustment : Result after 10' exposure : As it turns out, I can push to 8-10' exposure before seeing trails, which is better than before (4' max), but still not good enough. The problem I have is that the DARV method demands a 125 second exposure, but I can only push to 30' on my Canon 4000D. I don't know if that's good enough to correct the angle. I do have to say I moved along the DEC axis on the two adjustments, which may be wrong since I think I need to move on the RA for altitude. As for the GoTo alignement, I think I have the good observation site settings, as on initial slew for 2-star alignement to the first star (Cebalrai) it was pretty close. However, for the second star, the handset kept showing me stars in the north western sky, which I cannot really see from my vantage point. I just did 1-star alignement with cebalrai, but despite an "alignement successful" message, it was inaccurate slewing to other targets, so I don't really know what to do here.

I see, I was planning on doing the same once I got it properly aligned. Thanks!

I did not know about that. Is it accurate enough for AP?

Alright, I understand now. I'll definitely try this method once the skies clear up again. Thank you very much for all the insightful information

Yes

I haven't seen anything of the sort, but then again, I don't exactly know what "handset polar align" refers to I'm pretty sure I entered the date correctly, I did spot the fact it was using the american format.

I think I understand, so the same procedure is done for altitude in regards to placing the star in the right hand side of the sensor, and going left and right?

Oh my, I completely missed his post. You're absolutely right, this looks a good solution to my problem. I just don't quite understand the last step with regards to the altitude, do I just take a 5sec exposure, see the trail, and adjust the altitude until I get it right, or do I also move the telescope during the exposure on the RA axis?

I see, thanks for all the information! I'll try drift alignement manually then, and see how it goes. If it goes well, I'll start looking into autoguiding to improve my performance.

SkyWatcher EQM35-PRO with Evostar 72ED, Canon 4000D. Is there a piece of software which would help me drift align with my DSLR? I think I saw somewhere that PHD2 doesn't currently support DSLRs. As for autoguiding, is there a limit to how much the auto guider can correct? Well, it wasn't just inaccurate, it was slewing in the opposite direction almost, and I had the "RA Offset > 45 deg" error. I think I'm slowly getting it right though, last time it slewed near enough to have the "alignement successful" message once I centered it, but it was inaccurate slewing to other targets after this, but that maybe do to the fact that I had only done a 1-star alignement with big adjustements.

Howdy, I've been getting familiar with my astrophotography recently, but I still have one problem remaining : Polar Alignement. The way I'm setup, I only have access to the southern part of the sky. Until now, I've used some methods to do it roughly with a compass, but that is nowhere near accurate enough for AP. The most exposure time I've gotten out of it before having trails is about 4 seconds. I'm now looking into doing drift alignement, and I was wondering, is an autoguiding scope required to do it? Until now all the information I found about it mentioned using a guide camera and PHD2. Another question I had is, since the autoguiding setup corrects for tracking errors, could it compensate for a rough polar alignement, or do you need a good one from the start? Also, I have a slight problem with the Goto handset, as on initial alignement, it slews nowhere near the target, I think it must be the way it calculates Sidereal time. I've tried a bunch of different observation site settings, but I still can't get it right... I would greatly appreciate if anybody can answer my questions

There doesn't seem to be any play, I do note that the gears just don't move at all, and don't produce any noise, it's as if the motor is completely dead

It doesn't seem to track, I left for a while and was still in the same position RA-wise. Inverting the wiring for DEC and RA does nothing. I'll probably end having to return it, but if it can be fixed by just replacing the motor, or if I can somehow make sure it's not the handset (it probably isn't since it doesn't track anyways), that would be nice. Thanks for your input!

New mount indeed. I didn't do any tracking test, I assume it wouldn't seeing as though it doesn't move. I tried manually moving the it along the RA axis, and then parking it to the home position, but again, only DEC slewed. I tested different rates, but it doesn't seem to slew in any of those, as the gears are immobile. I don't see any power LEDs on the mount, I wasn't aware there was one. As for the power supply, I also tested it by plugging it into my car with the supplied cigarette lighter cable, and the same problem occured. At this point I'm wondering whether I can simply replace the faulty motor, or even maybe open it up to see what happens when I try to slew. If the handset is the faulty component here, I don't know how I would go about testing that out. I don't have a lynx cable for EQMod, and I don't have the hardware required to update the handset's firmware.